Mick's GeekBlog

OH SNAP! Look what I saw.

Posted by Mick on December 23, 2009 – 11:54 am

Several of my friends have been giving me a hard time about watching TV lately. Strangely enough, no one is giving me the “Television is a vast wasteland speech”. No, what I’m getting is the “Why would you actually watch TV live?” speech.

For the record, TV is indeed a vast wasteland, but that’s not a bad thing. Have you ever been to a desert? As you travel through a desert you will occasionally come to an oasis, a bright green spot with water and flowers and all sorts of goodness. That’s TV for me. For every mind-numbing LIFE ACCORDING TO JIM, there is a life-affirming VENTURE BROTHERS. But I digress. You’ll get used to that, by the way. I frequently digress. It’s what I do. I’m doing it right now.

Where were we? I remember, my friends were giving me a hard time about watching TV “as it happens”, so to speak. I know I can download most any TV show within 24 hours of it airing and have all the commercials cut out. I know I can DVR a show and then skip through the commercials. I know this, and I do these things. But sometimes I like to watch a show when it’s actually on. Is that so wrong?

Here’s my dirty little secret. I like to watch commercials. I find them fascinating. Even the ones I hate. I have a compulsion, for instance, to see every OLD NAVY commercial. I hate OLD NAVY commercials, but I’m amazed at how, year after year, they get consistently more annoying. The commercials have the opposite effect on me than what is intended – I will NEVER buy or wear anything from OLD NAVY just because of the commercials – but I have to see them all once. I will fast forward through them from then on.

And then we have the commercials that I love. Has anyone seen the new RADIO SHACK ads? The one with the puppets kinda creeps me out, we won’t discuss it. The other one, though, is awesome. I’m watching TV, here comes a commercial, and it’s a funny looking fat man taking pictures with a digital camera and singing “Oh snap! Look what I saw”. Silly. Catchy. And then I took a second look. That’s Biz Markie! Now for two weeks, every where I go I have a soundtrack in my head of “Oh, Snap! Look what I saw”. I sometimes even pretend to take pictures. I’m weird that way.

Biz Markie, baby! How can you not love a commercial with the Biz man, especially one that makes a rather clever call back to his biggest hit? I contend that this alone is ample evidence that one shouldn’t make a blanket policy of never watching commercials. I would be willing to defend that, but I don’t have to. Because as great as Biz is, that’s not the best example. Not by a long shot.

What is best in life? Two words. Happy pony.

Do you know what I’m talking about?

I love it. I love it dearly! If I’m fast forwarding the DVR, I will pause, rewind, and watch this commercial. Tara has learned that if we are in a conversation and this commercial comes on, the conversation must be paused – “Sorry Tara, the Happy Pony girl is on. And I’m not missing the Happy Pony girl”. This commercial isn’t all that great. Until the little girl appears. Then it is ON! I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an actress so completely take control of a scene.

I’m not saying commercials are some great art form. I’m not saying we should all watch commercials. I’m just saying – if you’re a fanatic about skipping them, sometimes you miss some gold. I can’t imagine living in a world where I never saw Volkswagen’s German engineers un-pimping your ride.

Or a world where the Happy Pony girl didn’t exist. Mark my words, friends, one day we’ll be seeing her accepting an Academy Award.

That, or we’ll be watching her on TMZ, snorting blow off Biz Markie’s stomach. “Oh, Snap! Guess what I saw?”